South Carolina Republicans back trans youth health care ban despite pushback from parents, doctors
ABC News
A bill banning transgender medical care for minors is heading to the South Carolina House floor
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Pleas from transgender children’s pediatricians and parents to keep allowing such kids to receive hormone therapies failed to stop Republican lawmakers from advancing a ban on those treatments to the South Carolina House floor on Wednesday.
The GOP-led Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee voted to advance the bill within the first two days of the 2024 legislative session. At least 22 states have enacted similar restrictions amid recent Republican-led crackdowns on transgender medical care, bathroom usage and sports participation.
The expediency underscores South Carolina House Republicans' prioritization of the conservative issue at the outset of an election year that will pit incumbents against primary challengers from the right.
The bill would bar health professionals from performing gender transition surgery, prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and overseeing hormone therapy for anyone under 18 years old.
Matt Sharp, senior counsel for a national Christian conservative advocacy group called the Alliance Defending Freedom, appeared virtually as the lone public testifier supporting the bill. Sharp, an out-of-state lawyer, claimed that children susceptible to “peer pressure” might experience irreversible negative consequences later in life if “experimental procedures” are allowed to continue.
